Imposter's Gathering

Quote (MachMan)

Watch for ambushes, don't let her touch you.

Mach reiterated in response to Roc's message, then focused back on soldier he sent crashing through the merchandise stall.

Silently accepting Vee's plan to stun the soldier, Mach moved to draw fire away from Vee so she could theoretically get a clear shot. With that, Mach disappeared in a flash of cyan, then instantly re-appeared above and behind the Navi with an identical flash, but also accompanied by a sharp, concussive sonic boom. Mach planned to use the ear-splitting boom of his Blitz Assault to not only catch the soldier's attention, but to also possibly leave him reeling, even if just long enough for Vee to further stun him.

Regardless, Mach expected the much more violent-acting claw to respond, so he juked up and away in an attempt to dodge what the claw threw and/or stabbed in his direction. His tattered crimson cloak roughly concealed the outline of his torso, arms and legs, which he believed might serve to his advantage. He continued to stall and dodge to allow Vee to attack, but if she hesitated, got distracted, or the soldier didn't get locked down for one reason or another, Mach shifted to offense with his AirShot3Damage: 120 + Microburst
Accuracy: A
Description: A buster-like gun that shoots a bullet of compressed air, sending whatever it hits flying.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Special: Wind Type: This chip counts as Wind Type for the purposes of Wind triggered effects, such as traps and terrain.
Trader Rank: B loaded and ready.

He wouldn't have immediately fired from his position up and behind the infected program, to avoid sending the Navi tumbling towards his allies or just straight-up hitting them instead. He kicked his throttles up to dash directly above the program, then tried to shoot straight down. If he could disable the soldier's body by breaking a limb or two, he theorized the claw would have to focus both on locomotion as well as attacking, which might give Vee and himself the advantage.

Meanwhile, the FighterPlane shifted its orbit to provide over-watch for Skywriter and Roc, then to Skywriter and the civilians specifically as they moved to leave the building. Thanks to its small size and high maneuverability, it could follow the small group even through the gate, then climb back up to a sufficient altitude to continue providing close air support.

The soldier howled and swiped at empty air, as MachMan disappeared from in front of him and reappeared overhead, creating a boom that caused the soldier to stumble forward and move his hands to his head. The black claw on its back briefly splattered into the shape of a pancake, then shot back out at MachMan, stretching out one finger like a tendril to lash MachMan. It managed a slash across the leg, but thankfully, no strange voices started speaking to MachMan, so it must not have been enough to infect him again.

Vee managed to nail the soldier using her kunai, which caused the navi to grit his teeth and convulse, unable to even turn around to face his opponents. The claw on the navi's back, however, continued to writhe and lash out at the two of them. Unable to move the soldier, however, it appeared to be limited in how much it could do without leaving its host. With both navi and claw thus held in place, MachMan re-positioned himself overhead and blasted both of them into the ground, splattering the black hand over its host in gleaming, gooey clumps. No sooner had it been splattered than it began to reform itself, but it did look like the soldier was incapacitated for a moment. Vee looked upward, then sent another message.

Quote (Vee)

I don't know how we can get that hand off of him. Maybe we could lure it off of him? I'll send in clones... perhaps it will try to pounce them as a way to transfer over to a stronger, more mobile host...

The ninja raised two fingers, pressing the opposite fist beneath her palm, then bristled with electricity as two clones slid outward from her position. The three rushed towards their opponent, with one sticking behind the others. Once she'd gotten close enough, the finger made something like a horizontal piece sign, then shot off the ends of its two fingers, sending a blob through each of them. Vee's eyes glowered over her face mask as she fell back, vulnerable now without the benefit of her clones.

Quote (Vee)

No good, it can attack at a range after all. It will probably try to separate and take more targets rather than leaving one wholesale. I don't know what we can do other than try to hit that claw with some real damage and eject it. What's your call?

------------------------------

Elsewhere, MachMan's plane was providing a watch over his other allies. Skywriter had successfully gotten the others to safety, but was perhaps losing points for entertaining the impromptu Q&A session she was now unable to get away from. "Is that thing really MachMan? What'd that creep mean when it said he killed his SPs?" the chatty, poorly-dressed MachMan demanded.

"That is MachMan, but he didn't kill his SPs," Skywriter answered, only slightly impatient. "You can't believe that navi... he's been infected by a creature that takes away his ability to think and speak freely. We don't know everything about it, but-"

"But you know it hates MachMan," the navi pointed out. "Why MachMan? Hey... there's no truth to what it's saying, right?"

"Of course not! I just told you!" Skywriter snapped back, pushing the navi further out the gates.

"Aren't you Aera?" the navi asked stupidly.

"I'm Skywriter, dressed as Aera!"

"Why?"

"D-Don't ask so many stupid questions!" she groaned, motioning for the navi's friends to help by pulling him. "Just jack out, this place isn't safe!"

"If MachMan's here, he'll protect us," the navi insisted, even as the other two grabbed his forearms and pulled him along with Skkywriter. At the very least, they were far enough from the soldier now to be nothing worth worrying about.

-----------------------------------------

Roc was busying herself looking around the backstage area, opening curtains and lifting up anything large enough to hide under. At some point, she'd gotten irritable and impatient herself, and she was now throwing things around with reckless abandon. "Fat nothing. There's not even anything to look at anymore," she noted, picking up a pair of discarded, semi-transparent, gold-colored panties someone had left in the dressing room before throwing them over her shoulder.

She abandoned this mission for now, taking into the air straight up and then spreading the wings on her sleeves, flapping her arms in large sweeps to stay airborne while scouting the area to remind herself where MachMan had been. She pointed her head down, then began to glide in that direction, presumably coming to provide combat aid in lieu of locating Agony, who was either a really good hider or otherwise had fled the area.

Quote (Roc)

Nobody's home, Boss. Want me to toast that soldier and we can just get out of here?

The infected soldier was proving tougher than he anticipated, but even though it managed to get a swipe at his leg, it didn't seem to inflict the same parasitic effects. Maybe only contact with Agony herself would spread the infection? The fact he hadn't seen any other programs infected by the Soldier's spree of attacks supported his theory. Speaking of Agony, the FighterPlane's feed along with Roc's message suggested the ROT-associate was no longer in the stadium. With that information in mind, he sent a message to both Vee and Roc.

Quote (MachMan)

Fall back and ensure the civilians escape without Agony interfering. Leave him to me; at worst I get infected and purge it like last time.

He demonstrated his dedication to continue engaging the NS soldier by following up on his AirShot with a relatively muted shot from his buster. He aimed the solid projectile specifically at the NS soldier's claw in an attempt to damage and/or disrupt any further attacks against Vee. He also called out to his NetOp, who was standing by with chips. " MagBomb3Damage: 90 + Blast 2 + Stun
Accuracy: C
Description: Magnetic bomb pins target
Duration: Once
Element: Elec
Trader Rank: B, Counter2Damage: (1-Hit I-Field) + (Counter(110 + Impact + Break): On-Hit)
Accuracy: S Block, A Return
Description: Defends against one attack, teleports to enemy, and strikes with Gutpunch. Impacting. Breaking.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Special: I-Field is pierced by Impact, Counter is negated by Impact.
Special: Status Guard: This chip blocks debuffs.
Trader Rank: C, and FlameLine3Damage: 170 + Ground Attack + Wide Attack
Accuracy: B
Description: A wall of fire erupts from the ground, burning up to 3 targets.
Duration: Once
Element: Fire
Trader Rank: B!" he ordered.

Mazer already had one of the chips in his hand, and simply nodded before uploading the three in rapid succession. ["Loaded!"] he stated after he slotted the last chip through and saw the "Uploaded" message appear on the PET's screen. Meanwhile, Mach raised his energy shields and waved off Vee if she didn't get the message. "Get outside!" he shouted as a tube-like launcher materialized under his right forearm. Though he had his shields raised, he didn't want them to be shredded as quickly as they appeared, so he attempted to roll out of the way of incoming fire as he was still perched in the air above the Navi.

Regardless of his success in avoiding the strikes, he countered by pointing his right arm towards the infected soldier, then the launcher went off with a loud "THOOMP" as it sent a large projectile careening in its direction. Upon contact, the shell exploded in a splash of odd blue gel, which was covering a wire-like mesh. A massive current pulsed through the mesh, giving everything in the immediate area a powerful, briefly debilitating shock and threw sparks all over the place. Mach continued to observe from above and at a safe distance from the electrocution net. Once it very quickly timed out, Mach plummeted directly on top of the infected soldier, leading with all four of his claw-tipped limbs like a wolf pouncing on a small prey animal. The single crimson glow from under his darkened hood continued to glare down at the Navi, while his jagged right arm drew back as if ready to fire off a punch.

"Where is Agony?!" he roared as his right hand, forearm, and upper arm started to burst with swarms of data. In a rapid flurry of data movement, the entirety of the limb reconfigured into much larger, heavier, and armored version. It looked like it should be attached to a piece of industrial equipment than a Navi, but when Mach punched down, it moved just as unnervingly fast as his normal limbs. He tried to bring the massive hand's fingers over the claw before clamping down like a bear trap. If he wasn't successful in grabbing the claw, he simply followed up by trying to bash it into the ground with a sledgehammer-like right straight. If he was successful, he pulled with all of his might in an attempt to forcibly tear the claw away from the program's body. He wasn't sure if it would damage the NS soldier, but there was only one way to find out.

If he managed to tear the entire thing, or at least a sizeable chunk, he tried to fling the claw away to send it splashing a few feet away. He was prepared to jettison the entire arm if the claw tried to hang on to his arm and fist to satisfy his intent of getting the claw a significant distance away. Regardless of the status of his right arm, Mach then followed up with his left, which had reformatted into a large flamethrower of sorts. He'd seen the claw attacked with explosives, blades, and electricity, so the next weapon to try was fire, naturally. He didn't want to allow the claw any time to recover to counterattack and/or escape, so he opened up on the flamethrower even as he continued to try to keep the program pinned down with his legs. A stream of flames burst forth from the weapon's nozzle and sailed in a shallow arc before bathing the area in a blazing lake of fire.

If the program's response to his demand didn't involve a specific location within Mach's reach; regardless of his success in removing the claw, Mach opened a channel with the NS soldier.

Quote (MachMan)

I must confess, I wasn't entirely truthful before. It's true I'm responsible for their deaths, but it was my weakness that killed them. We were attacked by this... abomination. I managed to take that monster down, but not before it absorbed both Vector and Aera, stealing them from me... forever. If I was stronger, faster, they might still be alive. It's my fault they're gone.

He half expected the program to claim he was lying, or simply flat-out denying the story as false. If that was the case, he leaned down so the program could get a good look before he opened his canopy with a slight hiss. As it opened, his hood was pulled back and shed light on his head and face. He didn't open it all the way, just enough for the NS soldier to see his mangled face and missing right eye. "Here's your proof," he growled before he closed the canopy back down, so his fatigued sapphire eye was again replaced by a glowing crimson light.


However, if the soldier coughed up Agony's location and it was nearby, he wouldn't have bothered revealing his true feelings or appearance, and would've warped away to get within engagement range of Agony.

The look on Vee's face made it clear she had a problem with the command to get lost. She sent back a message:

Quote (Vee)

I can't do that, MachMan. I've been instructed to keep an eye on the target.

It was a message that seemed at once easy to understand and yet hiding a deeper meaning, since it seemed to reference instructions that had only been given to Vee and not to him. Even as he continued to fight and barked at her to make an exit, she remained, watching with weapons ready.

The soldier continued to stand still, stunned, while the black hand contorted itself and elongated its appendages as much as it could, making jabs at MachMan and shooting out pellets of goo at high velocity. For the most part, he was fast enough to avoid them, and what few he didn't were inconsequential enough to be stopped by the shield. Covering the hand with a net seemed easy enough to start with; it was surprisingly simple to cover the whole hand with it. A few strands shot out from the surface, leaping through the holes in the net before it closed, but they didn't seem like enough to be any significant worry; the bulk of it was captured, along with the soldier, who groaned inside of it. Any ordinary NS soldier would nearly be EJO'd by just that attack, but the soldier was proving surprisingly durable.

Once he found an opening, MachMan ended up wrestling with the black hand for an extended period; each effort to lock the hand down resulted in more of the goo escaping in annoying clumps, splattering messily all around and on top of MachMan. "Agony... Agony...!" the soldier growled, either commenting on his general condition of pain or the one controlling him. "I'll destroy you myself... MachMaaan!" No answers, although the navi could just barely speak to say anything through his chattering teeth, as electricity-induced paralysis ripped through his core.

With what precision MachMan could muster, he burned away at the grasping remains of the claw, even as other chunks of it began to reform and inch their way closer to him, becoming tiny claws themselves. Some of them were dying, skittering wildly until they ended up belly-up, flailing appendages like dying roaches. A few managed to climb onto him. "MachMan!" Vee cried out from nearby, flinging kunai to knock off the ones she could. "Abort! Under Yasu's orders, I order you to abort!" she called out. The additional order she had received from Yasu might be becoming a little clear to MachMan now, but again, there was very little time to think about that.

The soldier's face looked even more pained as MachMan explained the real truth to him. The claw had almost entirely left him now, and some of the pain he was feeling was obviously physical, not just emotion. "You... you wanted to protect Aera... just like I did... MachMan, I... all I feel is agony... Agony...!" he wept, biting down on his lip hard. In a flash, he beamed out of the net, leaving behind just MachMan fighting off a swarm of angry, black insect-like hands. It seemed like MachMan had reached the soldier, but where the navi had gone now was anyone's guess.

MachMan had been left without answers on Agony's location, however, and he was also left with some pretty acute agony of his own, as more and more of the remaining black hands lept at him, grabbing onto his hull and his exposed face before being ripped and burned away. Flickers of another message were shooting through his head:

Quote (Agony)

You have suffered

Suffering breeds strength

Suffer

Suffer!

I'll help you become stronger and stronger

One thing MachMan was probably not feeling was stronger, as claws pierced into his metallic frame and ripped at the few exposed parts they could reach. Jacking out worked pretty well last time... he might want to try it again. Vee had stopped pulling hands off of him at this point and was now pinning down a few of them that had gotten it in their minds to come for her. Given the circumstances, she decided to spill further beans to MachMan:

Quote (Vee)

Yasu sent me with you to make sure that you didn't hurt yourself, that's all! You've got to jack out, now! I've told the others you're already jacked out, that's the only way I could get them to leave instead of coming back here!

[[color=blue]The "target?"[/color]] Mach thought in response to Vee's staunch refusal to oversee the evacuation. He wondered if the NS soldier was the target, since he might've been one of the "lost ones" that had gone astray in Yasu's coup. His was Agony, whom he had "full permission to use force and eliminate this target as completely as you're able."

Undeterred, he unleashed his assault on the program, but the claw proved to be less solid than he would've liked; each glob was able to reformat itself into a smaller version of its "mother claw." His pinpoint crimson glow of an eye glared back as he rapidly shifted his upper torso to face Vee as she cried out, calling him to abort, "under Yasu's orders." Mach's lone eye squinted from beneath his pitch-black, shadow-wreathed canopy; something was off. It was obvious he wasn't trying to beat the infected soldier to death, maybe Vee thought he decided to destroy the program? He didn't respond, mostly from what the program said in response to his truth bomb, then beamed out as more little claws swarmed over him.

He tried to tear away and smash the little insect-like fragments of the inky black claw, then responded to Vee's order. "I didn't kill him, Genera-." he said in an attempt to defend himself, assuming Vee wanted him to stop from destroying the Navi in his clutches, but was cut off by an all-too-familiar (and obviously hated) voice in his head. [[color=blue]Well there goes that theory,[/color]] Mach thought to himself, regarding his earlier guess that only Agony herself could infect new targets. [[color=blue]How insightful, I never knew that. Unless you have some useful information, get lost.[/color]] he thought with as much sarcasm as he could muster before he activated is debug program, in case any glitches came along with this new infection.

Meanwhile, Mazer moved to assist his Navi against the inbound swarm. He slotted in a chip which he believed could do the job, or at least not hurt to dry, which prompted a much more useful message to pop up in his head. "Hold that thought, General," he interrupted before he launched himself skyward with a howl of his engines. He rocketed up a little over two dozen feet, then suddenly stopped in place. He jettisoned both his right arm and his canopy, which blasted off as if ringed with explosives and shredded the hood of his cloak. A split second later, it appeared his body literally exploded in a large fireball, bathing the arena with light and a significant amount of heat.

The Burner2Damage: 130 + Nova 2
Accuracy: B
Description: The area around the user spontaneously combusts, causing anything nearby to be scorched with fire.
Duration: Once
Element: Fire
Trader Rank: C chip burned out quickly, leaving what appeared to be a blackened and charred MachMan behind, but a closer inspection would reveal he also used the time to deactivate his RedCross to revert back to his standard form, sans right arm and canopy of course. He fell to the floor and impacted with a metallic thud, his prosthetic legs groaned and creaked under the strain, but he seemed relatively uninjured before standing back up to full height and glared back at Vee with his lone eye, and no opaque canopy to obscure the view of his heavily damaged face. His canopy shattered as it crashed down behind him, while his right arm clattered to the floor with a solid "thud."

If there were still claws skittering about his body and face, he tried to pluck any that crawled over his remaining eye, then crush them in his hand before sending a message back to Vee. His glare made him appear seemingly numb to the pain being inflicted by their claws, even as more and more slashes and gouges appeared on his already-ruined face.

Quote (MachMan)

Right. I'm infected, and can't trust a word I hear, so I'll ignore your insulting claim that I needed a 'babysitter.' Fall back, before you get infected too.

[[color=blue]You can make me stronger? Prove it.[/color]] he fumed in his mind, daring Agony. Maybe she could hint a location, or even reveal herself so he could finally have a physical manifestation of the program to fight.

Vee continued sniping the jet-black claws skittering around with her kunai, seeming to keep her cool as far as her usual stoic silence, though she couldn't be happy that MachMan had chosen to stay instead of immediately retreating. His plan worked out fairly well, though: leaping into the air kept him out of reach from new hands, while his burner took care of those still clinging to him.

When he came back down, the ninja was still fighting the remnants on the ground, which were few but nimble. She only had so many kunai- a possible weakness in her arsenal compared to his- so she seemed relieved that he reappeared so quickly. Most of the claws she had attacked were only stunned rather than dead, meaning they were easy targets, but ones that needed to be burnt quickly.

Sweating now from the exertion, the ninja shifted her bug mask up for a moment to stare at him, as if confirming that he was still alive following that explosion and part shedding. She then prepared two heated kunai and slung them at the enemies on the ground, while sending another short message.

Quote (Vee)

By the looks of it you've injured yourself more than the enemy has, MachMan. That's what I'm here to watch out for.

The enemies were mostly dispatched now, with MachMan only catching a few static-like buzzes of Agony's voice each time as bits of goop slid across the ground and slapped against him, like a leaky gutter dripping upward against gravity.

Quote (Agony)

Then stop resisting


I'll find you again


Look for my hands

It sounded like her version of "stronger" was ending up wearing a bug-backpack like the soldier MachMan had been fighting, which he likely wanted to avoid. That said, she made it sound like they wouldn't be meeting again until some time in the future, regardless.

Mach utilized his buster in an attempt to shoot off any claws that hadn't already been smacked away by Vee's kunai, then took off again to deny the remaining claws a target. Once he got several dozen feet in the air, he looked down to Vee and finally responded to her message.

Quote (MachMan)

Looks like Agony is a no-show, was hoping to coax her out so I could put an end to her. I'll head back to camp, and await the rest of the team.

He then pushed his throttles forward to send him cruising further skyward and angled him towards the hole in the roof. His left arm folded up against the underside of his left engine nacelle, while his right remained discarded on the floor, and he bent his knees as to not smack his feet and legs against the sides of the hole before punching through.

Once he was clear of the building, his quickly began to glow cyan before streaking off in a beam of light. Down on the floor of the arena, three more flashes of cyan appeared. A second later, his arm and canopy where nowhere to be found. Outside, his FighterPlane didn't disappear in a flash of cyan, instead it simply fragmented into bits of rapidly disappearing data packets, till none remained.

((Back to NS Camp))